Single mom for Congress Katie Wilson [grant winner!]

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Single mom Katie Wilson runs for Congress

Katie Wilson, 34, single mom and entrepreneur, is running for the 21st Congressional District, aiming to flip the seat from red to blue. Wilson is part of the record-breaking wave of hundreds of women in the United States running for public office, at both national and local levels. A mom of two school-aged children, she represents what is quickly becoming the majority family in this country: never married, co-parenting with her children's father, and working full-time.

This is part of the appeal that has attracted profiles in Lenny, Huffington Post, Salon, Teen Vogue, and Refinery29 — and support from some of the most influential donors in the country.

In this episode, Katie and I talk about:

The public's definition of what constitutes a single mom

Why it's important to raise kids to appreciate the struggle — and why her daily struggle makes her the best candidate

Why people don't trust millionaire politicians

Healthcare for women, and why she uses Planned Parenthood for health services

Full interview with single mom Congressional candidate Katie Wilson

Emma: Hey, hey, hey! Welcome to Like a Mother. This is my favorite time of the month when I give away my Kickass Single Mom Grant. For those of you tuning in for the first time, this is just my money that I give away to an awesome mom doing something awesome in the world. This is positive. This is not need-based. This is celebrating and showcasing an amazing woman, doing something incredible in the world.

As you know on my blog, and this podcast, and in my book, it’s all about changing the narrative about what it means to be a single mom. We are going to be the majority in about a minute, and this is normal, and we are out there with incredible opportunities, and rights. Therefore, obligations to be moving the needle for other women. My partner as of the last couple months in this pursuit has been gobankingrates.com. They are sponsoring the grant and therefore, this podcast, and therefore, our guest today who is Katie Wilson. Who is the 21st congressional district candidate.

First, I want to point out that gobankingrates.com is an incredible source of information for how to get your financial life on track and build wealth. This is their mission and a perfect partner for me. You can go to gobankingrates.com/singlemom and enter to win my book, The Kickass Single Mom as well as Nicole Lapin’s – Boss Bitch. Enter to win and get on the gobankingrates.com email list and get all of their incredible resources.

Which brings me to this month’s boss bitch, and kickass single mom, Katie Wilson.

Thank you so much for being here.

Katie: It’s wonderful to be here, Emma. Thank you for having me.

Emma: Katie, quick snapshot, I’ll introduce you. You are a working single mom in upstate New York in Adirondacks, beautiful part of this world. You are running for the Democrat seat, congressional seat, district 21, for which I say, thank you. Thank you for your service.

Katie: Well it’s a very, very exciting moment. I’m just happy to be doing everything I can to try to create a better world for my kids.

Working single mom endorsed by the working family party

Emma: You’re a working single mom. This is a platform that you are running on. You are 34 years old. You are running on the democratic ticket, but you’ve been endorsed by the working family party, right? You are not a millionaire. You’ve got incredible media, which we’ll talk about in a second, but you’re consistently talking about how you are not a millionaire, like everybody else in Congress. You are representing working families who are the majority of your district. It’s Trump Country. It’s working blue-collar families. Talk a little bit about that. Talk about why you are needed. Why you as a single mom, this is the message you want to get out and make changes.

Katie: Well, right now, there are only 2 percent of our congressional representatives in both the house and the Senate that come from a working-class background. Yet, you and I know that the vast majority of people in this country are working really hard. They’re piecing together a good life for themselves. I really think that if we are going to take back the majority in the mid-terms, and there forward, we’re really going to have to start to represent people who make up that majority. We’re going to have to give them someone that they can trust and believe in.

Right now, what I see most on both sides of the aisle, is that people don’t trust their government, and they don’t trust politicians. This is a district, in fact, you called it Trump Country, and that’s true, but it’s also a really unique district in that it won Obama twice. There are a lot of Republicans living up here in, conceivably, the middle of nowhere to many people, who voted for Obama twice, and who voted for a black man as their president. They re-elected him and believed that he was fighting for them and then gave up hope at some point and voted for Donald Trump. Those are the people that I’m trying to speak to.

I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t surprised that this district went Trump. I wasn’t surprised that Trump got elected at all, because I see that that feeling and the forlorn feeling of not being listened to, and being ignored, and really just not having a voice anymore. Really, that’s what I’m trying to tap into. I feel I’m one of those people too. I feel my family has been left behind. We have an opportunity now to turn this around and create a better future.

“I'm an entrepreneur out of necessity, not because it's some really sexy thing to be in this moment.”

Emma: You’re an educated white woman. You’re a small business owner. For the record, we connected because I read this great essay that you wrote for Lenny. For those of you who don’t know, is Lena Dunham’s email newsletter publication, which is a huge deal.

You’re all over the media, Katie. You’re getting A-list – Politico, Salon, MSNBC. We’ll talk about how you’re getting all that in a second because that’s amazing campaigning. Why are you that person? It’s all the headlines are, that you’re a single mom. Why is this the platform that you’re running on?

Katie: Well, I thought, it’s the truth. We’re putting that out in front because it’s real, and it’s me. It’s not just me. There’s so many people out there, and so many women who feel like they are— I will only speak for myself, but I felt trapped for many years. I am a “successful” entrepreneur. I’ve started a couple businesses up here in the Adirondacks, but those businesses were started out of necessity. Those businesses were started because I had to put food on the table. One became two because one wasn’t cutting it. I’m an entrepreneur out of necessity, not because it’s some really sexy thing to be in this moment.

I want to talk to those women. I want to talk to those single dads too and say, “Hey, I get how hard this is and yet it can still be celebrated. It can still equal success, It can still be something we’re proud of.” It’s a moment to fight. How many people do you know, who you find interesting who haven’t had to struggle through something? Those are, by far, the most interesting and the most compelling stories. Why not share that?

I feel like it’s time, to be honest, and it’s time to be real. My generation and even that before me and after, we’ve been marketed to our whole lives. We know the power of marketing. We can also smell inauthenticity a mile away.

Emma: Let’s talk about who you are. One thing that’s really awesome I think is that you’re out there. You’re a single mom, but you were never married, which is, by the way, the norm. 67 percent of millennial moms are unmarried. People aren’t getting married. I am 41, I was married and I had my babies, and I got divorced. I’m an old fogie. That’s the old model. That’s not what’s happening in America anymore. The families look very different, and you’re just embracing that. You’re not trying to pretend that you’re June Cleaver, because you’re just not, and most women in this country are not. We don’t have that family model anymore, and it’s not good or bad, it just is.

Becoming a single mom

Let’s talk about this. In some of your essays that you’ve written for publications, you talk about the fact that you were in a partnership, had babies, and it was really fucking hard. It was hard financially. It was hard emotionally. The mother part was hard. The relationship part was hard. Who can’t relate? That’s real life. Talk to me a little about those years when things were really, really rough.

Katie: I fell in love and got pregnant right away.Engaged and pregnant, right about the same day. I never expected him to ask me to marry him, and I was like, “No. We’re going to do this other thing. We’re going to have a child.” Honestly, that was probably the biggest mistake, because you add that layer of pressure.

I was running my family business at the time, which was a huge property up here in the Adirondacks. It was a bed and breakfast. We had horses, and it was so idyllic. I catered weddings. It was a lot though. I was running this huge property, with all these moving parts, and it was a family business. And I was like, I can’t do this and be pregnant. I can’t deal with my dad and my family, and we’re going to go out west.

We went out to Colorado. We voted for Obama. We had a baby and got pregnant right away again. Then the economy crashed and we returned back here to this beautiful part of the country, with our tails between our legs. We knew that we could find soft landing with our families, but it was the ego pit. It felt shameful.

That was probably the beginning of the end of our relationship. I wanted to stay out there. I thought we had enough friends and we built a community that could support us, but he wasn’t having that. He had just lost this big contracting job and he was like, “No. I can’t live off of handouts from our friends.” It was tough.

We moved in with his mom, which is everyone’s worst nightmare. Yet, it provided me a lot. Necessity is the mother of invention. I opened a business and started running what was really just a glorified thrift store. It was like a glorified recycling center. Yet, the town we live in is incredibly affluent. I was hustling and these rich women who are lovely, were bringing in their wonderful wardrobes and antiques, down to my store and that was the gig. I learned how to hustle. That’s what you do when you have little mouths to feed.

Emma: Your kids are 7 and 9, right?

Katie: Actually, my son just turned 10. Now I’ve got an 8 and a 10-year-old on my hands.

Emma: Yeah, that’s the exact same age as my kids. So, they’re little.

Katie: They’re in that kind of sweet spot I feel like. Where they’re independent, but they still love you, mostly. Like, you’re still pretty great, as their mom, but they don’t need their butt wiped, and they can feed themselves.

It’s tough. This is hard. They’re being exposed to a world they never otherwise would have a window into. It’s really exciting. For the first time, my son, a couple months ago, he would come to an event and we’re on this panel, all seven of us candidates at the time, and my son is at the back of the table and I see this little chubby hand go up in the back of the room. He asked a question, and the moderator let him ask his question, and he says, “Is it hard to run for Congress? If so, why?” I’m starting to tear up, and everyone is excited, everyone answers the question. It’s the first personal question that anyone has asked, instead of policy.

When we get home, he comes up to me and he’s like, “Mom, I am so proud of you. I want to be just like you when I grow up.” I thought, “Oh my God. My nine-year-old boy has never taken an interest in what I do.” It was really gratifying. It’s hard, but it’s worth it.

Balancing family, business and campaigning

Emma: How is the business going now? Tell me about that?

Katie: Well, I’m campaigning full time. This can’t be done any other way. But, the business is going really well. My good friend has become my full-blown business partner, and she is just running the show. Up here, it’s very seasonal. We struggled through a winter that was okay. We had some snow, so we had some tourism, but we’re getting ready for our busy season right now. I’ll just put in a little plug. If anyone’s coming up this way I do have the best consignment shop outside of the city.

Emma: What’s it called? Tell us the name.

Katie: It’s called Adirondack Attic.

Emma: Adirondack Attic.

It’s a double-edged sword. On one hand, we get it. I hear you. I hear the hustle. I get you. I like you. I feel you. But then I’m like, well, you’re not thriving yet. You’re still a struggling business owner. On one hand, I connect with that, but the other hand, are you going to be able to cut it in Congress?

Katie: Well, you know what’s funny? I have more support now. I’ve drawn so much attention to myself. I’m doing this thing that’s larger than just me. I’m fighting for something bigger than myself. With that has come so much support. In this sort of perverse and strange way, I have more help and support right now than I ever did before, which is so interesting to me. To realize that was kind of shocking.

Single moms don’t get a lot of airtime. It’s like, oh yeah, you’re a single mom, why aren’t you at every single soccer game? Maybe they don’t feel that way, but I’ve always felt like, you don’t know how hard it is for me to get to these two basketball games in one day, and try to keep my store open, and have food on the table at the end of the day. Now, I have people.

A prerequisite for this campaign is being able to babysit for a couple hours when needed. It’s very interesting and it’s very untraditional, but I feel so supported. Their dad is still in the picture, and he’s supportive of what I’m doing, and we can make this work.

Wilson's stance on healthcare and Planned Parenthood

Emma: Awesome. Let’s just go down some of your issues. Healthcare? Universal healthcare? To me, that’s like a no-brainer.

Katie: it’s a no-brainer. Up here, really the biggest issue is health care for sure, but it’s really the economy. Up here, the living is hard. People are under incredible amounts of stress. It’s not totally unique but it is very real. Healthcare is an economic issue up here. It’s lifting the burden off small business owners and making sure that people’s basic needs are met. When basic needs are met, and this is a no-brainer for you and I, but we know that then some of those larger social injustice issues feel like the edge is taken off, we can start to move in a different when people feel taken care of. They’re not pointing the finger at someone else to assign blame, because that’s how we make sense of things.

Healthcare is huge. I think as a pragmatist, there are some really interesting ways, and very will and possible ways, to get from here to where we need to be without just turning everything upside down. Chris Murphy has a wonderful plan. It’s a Medicare buy-in on the open exchange and there’s a ton of settings. It would help so many people while creating more coverage and driving costs down.

Emma: Right. It’s just something we have to deal with because the current system is simply not working. I pay $800 a month for two little healthy kids, and one healthy adult and that covers nothing. We get one check-up per year, and everything else is out of pocket. It’s like, duh!

Katie: Duh. Especially up here. In an area like this, not even every county has a hospital in it. There’s a little town I was in not too long ago. It was the most beautiful little town. It’s going bananas in the summertime. It’s so gorgeous. Yet, there’s one doctor, who is not taking new patients. There’s a nurse practitioner who does not see children. If you do need to go to the hospital or there’s some kind of emergency, a volunteer service drives you an hour and 15 minutes to the nearest hospital. That is their reality.

Emma: People don’t realize that. I’m in the city and my biggest complaint is literally as we’re speaking here, we’ll probably be interrupted by a siren because there’s an emergency room on my block. People don’t understand the trickle-down, because managed care, it’s not just hitting me in my pocket. Doctors and nurses are not getting compensated like they used to. Our brightest people now want to go into banking.

Emma: Right. It’s not just affecting working people who can’t pay healthcare premiums. It is disincentivizing the larger system from growing and serving our people. It’s so complicated. And that’s such an important perspective that you are coming from a district where geography and distance is really a healthcare issue because it’s not a densely populated area. If you have an emergency and you need to get to the hospital, but the hospital is just that much farther away. It’s important to have this different perspective from somebody who lives in the city.

Katie: Yeah. To bring it back to the Planned Parenthood thing, there are so many people my age who that is the only healthcare provider that they see in a year. To be perfectly honest, that’s really the only healthcare provider that I see in a year these days.

Emma: Seriously?

Katie: Yeah, because I’m healthy, and yet I want to make sure everything’s okay. I know that I can trust the women who work there, and I feel really well taken care of, and it’s the closest place. Instead of driving an hour or 45 minutes to a healthcare center where you feel like a number, you can go to your local Planned Parenthood and you get really great care.

Emma: And that’s great. So, they’re just serving. They’re meeting us where we need to be met. Let’s do that. It’s working. Go with what works instead of fighting against a system that’s not working.

Environmental responsibility and politics

Next issue, this is what I love. You are coming from a part of the country where it’s very, very evident our responsibility to the environment. You have been very politically active in this regard. It’s not like you’re coming out of nowhere because you’re pissed off about the election. You have been consistently active about that.

Katie: Well, there’s that too.

Emma: Well, that goes without saying.

Katie: I appreciate it. Two years ago now, in the fall of 2016 I believe, I organized a drive for supplies. My second company is a wellness company. It’s totally tabled for the campaign, but it was called Taproot Apothecary. I made these really lovely, locally sourced, grown, and well-crafted wellness products. I had a lot of connections in the herbal community around here and the wellness community, and I put out a region-wide drive, it was New England and the North region for teas, salves, and things that they could use out on the reservation and needed, to drive out to Standing Rock.

My friend and I drove this Prius, packed to the hilt, to North Dakota, and honestly, my life was forever changed. That place was incredible. I knew that this water is the new frontier. If we do not protect our waters, we do not protect the future for our children and this planet. That was huge and upon returning home I led a divestment campaign because really, it all comes down to money. It’s the wolf you feed. If we continue to feed the fossil fuel industry, and we continue to let these huge megabanks finance the pillaging of our land and resources, then we’re just going to continue down the wrong path.

Emma: Let’s talk about money. I just was looking, the most recent numbers I could find, you raised just about $160,000. Is that right?

Katie: Thereabouts. I think we’ve put a lot more in the bank in the last month, but that was the last quarterly report. It’s a far cry from what a lot of other people have raised.

Unseating a Republican in Congress

Emma: So, we’re in the primaries, which is June 26, you are looking to unseat a Republican, a long sitting Republican. I think there’s six other candidates running.

Katie: There are six of us total.

Emma: Six total?

Katie: Yeah, we just had another person drop.

Emma: Where is the money coming from? Who are your big donors?

Katie: Well, initially it was very grassroots. It was people in the community, but as you described, this area is very rural, and to be honest, it’s pretty poor. You really can’t fundraise from just within the district, unlike a lot of other parts of the country. I’ve had some incredible progressives and enviros from over in Vermont come in really big, including Phil McKibben, more with support than with huge, big checks, but a lot of that circle of people over there who are very liberal and very environmentally focused have opened up their pocketbooks in a huge way. Also, we’ve gotten some great support from— I’m always hesitant to call out our donors because I don’t know how polite that is.

Emma: Fuck that. No. It is a sign of gratitude, and people who know them give other people permission to also open their wallets or whatever. Just say it.

Katie: Okay, we have the founder and former CEO of Patagonia come in. He and his wife have come in at the highest possible level. Then it’s been a lot of former Obama and Hillary people. I’d spend almost eight hours a day cold calling donors and just giving my pitch, asking for money, and telling them what this race is all about and how winnable it is. So, it’s random good Samaritans from around the country who are committed to flipping the house. I’m not alone. Often times, I’m the tenth person that has called them that week. People are out there shaking these donor trees really hard. I’m certainly not the only one. You get lucky sometimes and you make a connection and if they believe that you have a path to victory, they will come in.

Emma: Isn’t that interesting? I find that in my business. I’ve been telling the story over the last couple years. My business has grown so big now. I mean, I’ll tell you, I’m going to do $400,000 in business, and a lot of it is just women who are finding me. Women who are affluent and influential in their businesses, they like what I have to say and they connect and make introductions in their businesses, and advocate for me. This is not in the political world, this is in the business world, but it’s all politics. It’s very human. These connections are so human.

The value of a network of powerful women

Katie: That is what’s gotten us to this point. It’s been largely women who are like, “Okay, I see you. I see what’s going on here. I get it. I’m going to help. I’m going to tap my network of women who are going to help, and we’re going to make this thing happen.” It’s women who were some of the founders of NAREL, and Planned Parenthood, who are so inspiring and who have been at this for a long time. It’s humbling and it’s exciting. It means a lot to have the support of these kinds of powerhouse women out there. The fact that they’re willing to go to bat and tap their network for me is probably the greatest compliment that I could receive.

Emma: Right.

Katie: Including you. Thank you.

Emma: It’s funny because I grew up in a small town. I wasn’t born into any kind of connections, at all.

Katie: You forged them.

Emma: Yeah, you forge them. I’m from the midwest and I always think, New York. I live in New York City now. I think, everybody there is special. Everybody there is out of reach for me. Smarter, sparkly, they’re better looking, they’re special. They’re not. They just live in New York. They probably dress a lot better than I do, but they are just, human. There’s also, as you know, influential and powerful people everywhere, they’re not all in New York and LA. It’s just that human connection. Like, oh my God, my life is a fucking shit show, and I got divorced. Guess what? Melania Trump is going to be identifying that in about a minute.

Katie: Oh shit.

Emma: I’m not willing it. I’m just saying the fact. It’s just facts.

Why adversity and struggle can be good for kids

Katie: You know the whole helicopter parent thing, and it’s tempting to do that, especially when they’re babies, but I don’t want to raise kids who have everything laid out for them and have it super easy. I think about this with my kids a lot. I want to raise kids who, when faced with adversity, because you know damn sure it’s going to come, they can handle it. They have the skills they need to work through problems and sometimes really fucking big ones and come out on the other side, stronger for it and a more well-rounded person.

Emma: I so cherish my struggles. Why would I want to take that away from my kids?

Katie: Right. And it’s hard and it can be really hard to watch them struggle through that. It’s brutal, but at the same time, that’s how you learn.

Emma: Yeah, it’s just life.

Katie: Yeah, it’s life. Exactly. It’s going to happen no matter what.

Emma: Going back to the money bit, you’ve raised a lot of money from really high profile people and grassroots and you’re killing it with the money. But you know what, you’re not— There’s other Democrats who have like $500,000-$600,000.

Katie: Exactly. Yeah.

Emma: Talk to people that are not that politically active or savvy. I might be one of them. Is money directly correlated with your chance of winning?

Katie: Well, to a certain extent. I mean, there’s certainly a point of diminishing return, but right now for us, it’s about being smart with how we spend the money we have. What we’ve done is attracted just an all-star team of people, who are in this for the win. When I first got into this, I was given the best advice ever, by a friend who is still a huge part of our campaign. He was like, “Listen, people are going to be in your campaign for two reasons. The money, or the win. You need to surround yourself by people who are in it for the win if you’re going to pull this off because you’re never going to have the money that some of these people do.”

That is all the more reason why we’ve got to do it. I mean, campaign finance reform starts here, at the campaign level. If we can pull this off, it’s going to be the biggest upset and surprise in history essentially. We feel really good about it. Money is not going to with this thing, but running out of money is the best way to lose it. That’s kind of my response. It’s in the middle somewhere.

Why saying “you're not a real single mom” is a racist argument

Emma: Okay, so here’s our little speed round of single mom topics. This is from Lenny, you said, “This is my biggest pet peeve ever. Women who are like, ‘you’re not a real single mom because—’” That is the biggest lightning rod topic in my business. Actually, I wrote something I need to be promoting more. If you want to pick apart the whole single mom title, talk about white privilege. Historically, women of color, black women, were single moms because they were raped by their slave masters because their unions were not sanctioned. That’s the original single mom. So, if you want to separate yourself from the term “single mom,” it’s totally a racist argument.

Katie: Maybe I was that naive, but I was like, “Are you fucking kidding me?” I was so blindsided by that, I didn’t even really get mad. I was just horrified and surprised that anyone would come up with that argument. So, it was really easy to brush off. To be honest, it happened three times specifically during this race so far. The most recent time was from the woman who ran the Planned Parenthood in one of the cities in this district. She was drunk at a bar and she started to drop in. My campaign manager was with me and I was just like, “Here we go again.” It was unbelievable.

Emma: So, it’s like, peace out.

Katie: Fuck off. Yeah. That’s my reaction.

Emma: Awesome. For the single moms, are you dating anybody?

Katie: Well, I wish, but I don’t have any time.

Emma: There’s always time for a booty call.

Katie: Yeah, exactly. But, I was engaged again when I started running, and that ended really quickly.

Emma: Oh, I’m sorry.

Katie: You know how a lot of guys are. Like, it’s all me, or not at all. So, it’s tough.

Emma: Oh my God. Yes.

Katie: I’m sure if I were getting laid more often, I’d be a heck of a lot more exciting to be around and a much happier candidate to work for.

Emma: You just have that afterglow at all your TV appearances. It would be so great.

Katie: That’s right.

Emma: By the way, I should mention that our call got kind of messed up today because you guys have been without power up there in the mountains for three days?

Katie: Our new hatchback is only in the north country because it’s just one thing after another up here. No power for three days and trying to run a congressional campaign? That’s the reason I went to a hotel last night. So I could shower. A friend opened her hotel to all the people who were out of power. But, that’s how the communities are up here. There are a lot of perks to living in an area that is kind of extreme and where we’re used to dealing with all this kind of random stuff. Especially when it’s big power outage kind of thing because people are like, “Hey, we got you. Come on by. We’ll make you a cup of coffee.”

Emma: That’s so interesting.

When it comes to women overall, I feel definitely single moms have a lack of support. You’ve talked about that when you’ve run.

It became bigger than you. You have all the support, the childcare, people believe in you. Here’s the thing, I believe we can all replicate that in our everyday lives, even if you’re working whatever 9-5 job. You don’t have to be a national pseudo-figure to get that kind of support. You just had a really, really good reason to be vocal about what you needed.

Katie: Well, and I think you really hit it right on the head. I think I was probably too proud to ask for what I really needed all these years. As a woman, and a strong woman who has had to deal with financial strife most of my life, I was probably too proud to ask for what I really needed, and it was hard.

Emma: Yeah. Absolutely. I found that I went through a really, really bad family trauma. I talk about it a little bit in my work. When I was married, my husband had a horrible accident and had a brain trauma, that precipitated our divorce But babies, pregnancy, it was horrible. It was one of these horrible, horrible life events, and I felt so loved and supported. And for me, that’s like a lifelong issue of not asking for what I need, always feeling alone, like I had to do it myself. It was so affirming that you don’t have to have a trauma and you don’t have to be a national figure to get what you need. If you were to give women out there, moms, single moms, whatever, a message, what will you take forward in your life from this experience in terms of asking for what you need?

Katie: Just to continue doing it. I think people are actually really honored by being asked to help. I have a really great crew of single moms up here, and they’re the only ones I can talk to about how hard it is because they get it. They would do anything for me.

Everyone needs help. When you ask, then you’re giving someone else permission to ask for what they need in return.

It’s just, keeps asking, and don’t be ashamed. Don’t be too proud. Because what goes around comes around, and we’ve got to help each other out.

Emma: The other thing is, there’s so much science about how one of the, if not the number one thing that gives us joy in the world, every human, is serving others. If you can ask somebody to help in a meaningful way, not because you’re lazy, or you’re needy, it is a gift. It really is a gift to them to allow them to help you.

Katie: Yeah, and then the gratitude in return. The gratitude practice is one of those things that’s gotten me through life in the last five or 10 years. It’s real. It’s life-giving.

Emma: Let’s wrap this up. I want you to leave people, what’s your top three things you want people to know about you as a candidate, quick?

Katie: I’m in it to win it. I’m doing this because I have to. This is a lifelong pursuit. This is a moment where people are required to do things that they never thought they’d do. It doesn’t stop after the midterms. I’m here to represent all the women who feel like they could never do— Who are ready to step into a role they never thought they’d be in and just be role model of hope for them because I never thought I’d be doing this.

Emma: Right, absolutely. And the issues, you are representing the everyday person, and you get it. You get it in a way that the millionaires in Washington simply never will.

Katie: Right.

Emma: Where can people find you? Where can they get involved in your campaign?

Katie: Well, we are all over the internet. The website is katiewilsonforcongress.com and then we’re on Facebook, we’re on Instagram, we’re on Twitter, my handle is @adirondackatie and spreading the word is really what we need right now. You know, we need people. We need phone bankers. We need people to just get our message up there and kind of lift us up to the top of your social media, and if you know anyone who’s in a check-writing position, we can always use more money to take on the machinery of both parties right now and really try to bring someone a fresh voice to D.C. and the political sphere.

Emma: Awesome. Katie Wilson. Katiewilsonforcongress.com and another quick shout out to our sponsors, gobankingrates.com, and they are an incredible source of financial advice for all women, and they’re committed to helping women find their financial futures. Go to gobankingrates.com/singlemom to enter to win The Kickass Single Mom, as well as Nicole Lapin’s Boss Bitch.

Every month I give $1,000 to a single mom committed to building a positive life for herself, her family and contributing to the world in a productive way.

The Kickass Single Mom Grant supports endeavors that show promise for success — whether it is a career, business, nonprofit, charitable, creative or family project that is already underway and could use a financial boost.

This might include paying for formal education that will advance your career (or launch a new career!) that makes you happy and proud, propels you to financial independence and makes you a great role model for your children and others whose lives you touch.

You might seek to use this money to build your dream business — one that lights your passion, contributes to the world in a positive way.

Maybe you have a volunteer or nonprofit project that is blossoming.

Perhaps it is a personal project that you want to describe to me.

One part of this grant is to support incredible single women doing amazing things.

The other part is to highlight incredible single moms to inspire and uplift others who may not see in themselves what is possible.

No income maximum (or requirement). All nationalities welcome. Winners are announced the first of every month.

Emma Johnson is a veteran money journalist, noted blogger, bestselling author and an host of the award-winning podcast, Like a Mother with Emma Johnson. A former Associated Press Financial Wire reporter and MSN Money columnist, Emma has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Glamour, Oprah.com, U.S. News, Parenting, USA Today and others. Her #1 bestseller, The Kickass Single Mom (Penguin), was named to the New York Post's ‘Must Read” list.

Emma regularly comments on issues of modern families, gender equality, divorce, sex and motherhood for outlets like CNN, Headline News, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fox & Friends, CNBC, NPR, TIME, MONEY, O, The Oprah Magazine and The Doctors. She was named Parents magazine’s “Best of the Web,” “Top 15 Personal Finance Podcasts” by U.S. News, and a “Most Eligible New Yorker” by New York Observer.

A popular speaker, Emma presented at the United Nations Summit for Gender Equality. Read more about Emma here.

About Emma Johnson

Emma Johnson is a veteran money journalist, noted blogger, bestselling author and an host of the award-winning podcast, Like a Mother with Emma Johnson. A former Associated Press Financial Wire reporter and MSN Money columnist, Emma has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Glamour, Oprah.com, U.S. News, Parenting, USA Today and others. Her #1 bestseller, The Kickass Single Mom (Penguin), was named to the New York Post's ‘Must Read” list.Emma regularly comments on issues of modern families, gender equality, divorce, sex and motherhood for outlets like CNN, Headline News, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fox & Friends, CNBC, NPR, TIME, MONEY, O, The Oprah Magazine and The Doctors. She was named Parents magazine’s “Best of the Web,” “Top 15 Personal Finance Podcasts” by U.S. News, and a “Most Eligible New Yorker” by New York Observer.A popular speaker, Emma presented at the United Nations Summit for Gender Equality. Read more about Emma here.

1 Comment

Robin Shaveron May 15, 2018 at 11:10 am

Katie Wilson is a kick ass woman just stepping into her true power. She is fiercely passionate and will serve the 21st District with integrity, heart, and hard work. Thank you Katie. I am inspired and so very grateful!